Sims 2 Box Set: Prima Official Game Guide

List Price: $24.99 Discount Price: $14.07

Customer Reviews:

It's all there, but on the cheap side. [Posted on 2008-03-21]
I was actually going to rate this 4 stars, but decided that the item description didn't lead me to expect quite what I got.
The content is good, I've learned new stuff and I've been playing Sims 2 for several years. However, the quality of the books themselves aren't good. The type is sooo tiny it is hard to read and I find it difficult to read for a very long period of time. It would be okay, but they used super cheap paper as well, so the paper has a grayish tinge, which makes it even harder on the eyes.
I had anticipated the full-size color guides (maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention), whereas these are normal "novel size" books and no color. Mostly for me that is okay as they are actually easier to store and I'm familiar enough with the Sims 2 that I don't need the pictures to know what they are talking about. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to realize this before I received them.
So, all in all, if you are gettig these to use for the occasional reference on something, they're just right for that. But if you actually want something you can read through or that looks nice, find the larger color guides and get them. It'd be worth the extra expense in my opinion.

Save your money, search for info and game tips online! [Posted on 2008-03-31]
This cheap reproduction on newsprint in microscopic fonts was a very big disappointment. The guides for some games recently have an occasional section or two printed on the cheap (The FF XII guide by Brady Games comes to mind), resulting in poor readability for that section, but this takes the cake.

An entire set of guides reproduced so cheaply that legibility is poor at best, and unintelligible at worst.

Standard text within the guides is readable with a magnifying glass with good lighting. Text that appeared in the original publication within a shaded box for emphasis is less legible. Text that was itself a lighter shade appears to be nothing more than a pixelated mess since this black and white reproduction is of a low quality resolution.

Think very poor quality grainy newspaper print. With a tiny font. If you didn't need reading glasses before you tried to view these, you will afterwards.

Pictures that were originally in full color reproduced by this method are useless for their intended purpose. Some points in the guides are explained ONLY in pictures, which are now little better than gray misty blobs.

They could have used a better quality paper, or a better resolution, or color, or made the font larger/books thicker, or made the font slightly larger/books slightly larger. Actually, they could have tried any ONE of these, and made a more legible product, but they were horrifically cheap about it.

You'd think that someone in quality control, or management saw this thing before it went to market, and had the guts to say it was bad, pull it from production, but I guess not.

I wouldn't even get it for the occasional reference. If that's all you need out of a guide rather than cover-to-cover reading, I suggest searching the internet. It will be both cheaper and infinitely more legible. These books were a waste.

A must have [Posted on 2008-04-05]
Theese are a must have for the serious to normal gamer. Full of helpful tips and information to get your Sims to show their full potential.

Good price, pocketbooks [Posted on 2008-04-07]
I thought I was getting full-size color Prima Guides, instead these are black, white and gray Pocketbooks that are so small I have to read them in very good light during the day and even then it's kind of hard. The illustrations are crappy not only because of the lack of color, but the material of the pages reminds me of newspaper rather than what I'm usually used to from a Prima Guide. I was very disappointed when I received the package, to say the least.

Good content in a bad format [Posted on 2008-04-11]
The content of the books is excellent - that is, if you can actually read the print. I refer to the guides quite often but only in short doses because it usually gives me a headache. Also, the pictures are pretty useless.

I would recommend getting the individual books, though most of them are out of print. I think you can get the individual book for Freetime since it was just released. Also, I think you can purchase digital versions of the books at Prima's website. I have bought other digital Prima Guides and they were much more readable than these were. The only problem is you either have to print them out if you want to refer to them while you are playing the game. (Or switch back and forth from the game to the guide, which is a pain.)

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